By Zak Vescera, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Susan MacRae wants to talk about what happened to her, but she can’t.
As a young girl, MacRae signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) that prohibits her from discussing sexual abuse she suffered, even with family members or therapists.
Continue reading Greens Take Lead to Stop NDAs from Silencing Victims
Cortes Island naturalist George Sirk knows a lot about frogs.
GS: “A lot of people know me because of my interest in birds, which is really an addiction, isn’t it? I’m just hopeless when it comes to birds. I’m just totally into them. They’re so fascinating. I came from Venezuela when I was 10. My parents immigrated to Vancouver and I couldn’t speak English. I could speak Spanish and I knew a little Estonian and I could understand German because my parents argued in German.”
“So there I was in Vancouver, a little weird guy 10-years-old, and I met some other weird young people too, what we would call nerds.”
“They were into frogs. Jim Palmer was one, Lowell Orchid, that’s another. Jim just passed away actually in December, but Lowell’s still with us all here. We used to collect frogs very close to Kits Beach, the Lacarno beach area. It used to be a military base at one time. So there used to be a lot of empty properties, fields and it got very wet in the wintertime. The tree frogs would all go in there and have a great time.”
Continue reading George Sirk: Frog Stories
‘Wayfinding: Stories of Maps & Place’ opens at the Cortes Island Museum, between 1 and 4 PM on Sunday, March 26.
“I think wayfinding really touches on so many aspects of our current life. We have a really fabulous series of maps and artifacts. It’s an opportunity to share that with the public for the first time on many counts. I think everybody, on some level, has a personal story to do with wayfinding. This is a celebration, and a reminder that we all have stories to tell of place and an evolving relationship to the landscape,”explained Melanie Boyle, Managing Director/Curator of the museum.
Continue reading ‘Wayfinding’ at the Cortes Island Museum“I’m hoping that this summer at the Friday Market, we’ll at least be able to have a prototype on a trailer. We’ll be able to pull an A-frame into the parking lot at Mansons, and people will be able to walk inside, sit in it and check it out. In terms of the refined prototype, that concept will be September.”
“We’re working a little bit with Jason Andrews, who is so gracious with his time and expertise. He has really talked at length with us about the difference between really working on the prototyping versus jumping into trying to sell your product. There’s such a high demand for an extra bedroom around.”
“I think we could be popping these out by June, but they would be rudimentary and so the goal at this point would be to have them for next summer (2024). So this is something that next spring, hopefully we will be able to be in a position where we have something that’s been really tested, refined and repeatable.”
Continue reading Ellingsen Woods: Making small cabins for the glamping market
By Zak Vescera, The Tyee, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
In 2017, the City of Vancouver committed to ensuring its employees — and workers for city contractors — were paid enough to live there.
At the time, Vancouver was the biggest employer in the country to offer a living wage based on the cost of rent, food and other necessities.
“It was the largest living wage municipality, and it did a tremendous job over the years in encouraging other businesses to sign on,” said Anastasia French, the director of Living Wage for Families BC. Then-mayor Gregor Robertson told media it was a way to guarantee workers “a basic level of opportunity” in an expensive place to live and work.
Continue reading Vancouver’s Decision to Abandon Living Wage Program Creates Shockwaves
